practically under control, and the entire western addition of the city
west of Van Ness Avenue was safe from the flames. The great struggle was
fairly at an end, and the brave force of workers were at length given
some respite from their strenuous labors.

During the height of the struggle and the days of exhaustion and
depression that followed, exaggerated accounts of the losses and of the
area swept by the flames were current, some estimate making the extent
of the fire fifteen square miles out of the total of twenty-five square
miles of the city's area. It was not until Friday, the 27th, that an
official survey of the burned district, made by City Surveyor Woodward,
was completed, and the total area burned over found to be 2,500 acres, a
trifle less than four square miles. This, however, embraced the heart of
the business section and many of the principal residence streets, much
of the saved area being occupied by the dwellings of the poorer people,
so that the money loss was immensely greater than the percentage of
ground burned over would indicate.



CHAPTER III.

Fighting the Flames With Dynamite.


Shaken by earthquake, swept by flames, the water supply cut off by the
breaking of the mains, the authorities of the doomed city for a time
stood appalled. What could be done to stay the fierce march of the
flames which were sweeping resistlessly over palace and hovel alike,
over stately hall and miserable hut? Water was not to be had; what was